When the territory known as Palestine fell under British rule in 1923, it brought hope to a land that had been fiercely contested since Biblical times. Under the terms of the Mandate—the name given the treaty drafted by the League of Nations—the southern part of the Ottoman Empire would become “a national home for the Jewish people,” delivering them at last from their long and agonized history of exile. Arabs would live peaceably by their side. Instead, it provoked a nameless but lethal war that rages to this day.

Twenty-five years ago, Hadara Lazar began interviewing witnesses to (and often participants in) the events that culminated in the Partition of 1948—the division of Palestine into two separate and hostile nations. Her own mandate has been to understand the Arab-Israeli conflict through the eyes of those who unwittingly laid its groundwork. Their testimony, gathered in this moving oral history, weaves together a colorful tapestry of voices: the high-level British politicians and military officers who presided over Palestine; the Arabs who clung to a dream of self-rule; and the Jews who thought they had finally found a secure place in the world. Out of Palestine is history seen—and heard—close up; it captures a moment in time before the Middle East became a geographic term for the prospect of eternal strife.

AVAILABLE DECEMBER 2011